Expressionism
The use of text in this book is intricately interwoven into the illustrated images. On top of that it is purposely repetitive and expressionistic instead of the traditional sort of straightforward narrative one usually finds in a book of this time. Metaphor and similes abound, but taken out of context they might lose some of the clarity that arrives with reading them within context:
“and my mother’s head rocks and swivels east to west like the old fan pushing thick heat around this house”
Recurrence
Some imagery recurs over the length of the narrative on more than a single occasion. For instance, imagery of the narrator’s brother hiding himself from the problems of the world outside by losing himself in his video games. On the first occurrence of this image, the narrative constructs a metaphorical image of trying to bring him out of that alienated state of isolation:
“even when I turn my elbow into a fist and punch the bendy big-knuckle into his ribs to try to know his heart awake.”
Communication
One of the key themes in the book is the transformation of the way people communicate. Or, alternatively, the way they don’t communicate. Or, even more alternatively, how modern communications technology seems like normal discourse, but subtly allows for alienated isolation:
“and my sister talks to her homegirl through the screen of her phone like it’s the screen of a front door”
Protest
The book is every electrically charged with the energy of the protests over the summer of 2020 in reaction to horrific images of George Floyd being murdered by cops in full defiant view of cameras trained on them. Some of the focus, however, is not on the optimistic expectations of change that seemed to be in the air that long hot summer, but the cold splash of frigid reality which followed without any substantive change whatever:
“the feeling that this fight for freedom ain’t nothing but a fist with a face that looks like mine swinging at the wind”
Impressionism
While the dominant artistic tone of the book is Expressionist, there are also quieter, more subtle moments more akin to Impressionism. This text which introduces the motif of the father coughing in a way that seems to portend a really bad ending is, of course, simply by its very content suggestive of something else going on during the summer of 2020…and well beyond. The artwork accompanying it, however, is just slightly more muted with sections about what the cough sounds like accompanied by nothing but a vast red background. The redness of that background and the simplicity of it does not seek to authorize a definite expression of what the text means, but instead is open enough for readers to design their own conclusions about the meaning such as, perhaps, an impression of dying lungs filling up with blood, perhaps;
“And I’m sitting here wondering why…my father keeps coughing from the other room and why his cough sounds like something is living inside him and dying inside him at the same time”
